My birth

I was born 28th October 1943.

Only a few years before his death in 1989 I was talking to my father and asked whether his uncle who had been awarded the CIE in India in the 30s had been decorated with it in Delhi or where? Oh no he said it was in Calcutta where they all lived and it was by Sir so and so Anderson, also in Calcutta, who was the Governer of Bengal at the time.

A few moments later he added - "he was the same man who designed the Anderson shelter in one of whose shelters you were started your way into the world".

It took me a few moments to realise exactly what he was getting at!

My father was an electrical engineer working for Marconi in Chelmsford at the outbreak of war and was dismayed when he failed to be called-up and went to the recruiting office to find out why his call-up papers hadn't come.

Oh you won't get in he was told - you're a Reserved Occupation. He actually felt that not being allowed to fight was an affront to his manhood and to alleviate this, joined the local volunteer Bomb Disposal squad.

Before the war my sister had been born at home and my younger brother was born at home after the war and I should have been born there also but fate decreed otherwise.

The lady who my mother booked to be her midwife at my birth (these things being done on an individual basis in those days) was wheeling an elderly lady down the Broomfield Road in Chelmsford about a fortnight before my arrival when a German fighter came down spraying the road with bullits and sadly she was killed. (The lady in the wheelchair survived)

Dreadful as it was - this left the problem as to who should should attend my mother.

My father came up with the suggestion of the newly opened Brooklands Nursing Home in London Road, Chelmsford and so it came to be that I was born there.

Within 48 hours of my arrival I was obviously very sick indeed. My weight, originally well over 8 pounds was now under 6 pounds and I was dreadfully yellow. The doctor in charge said he was very sorry but "God was going to take their baby back". It seemed that I was suffering because my mother's blood was Rheusus positive and my father's Rheusus negative and my blood was being destroyed by her antibodies.

They fortunately they demanded a second opinion and called in the family doctor, Dr Whitley, who said that he had already used a very new treatment which meant withdrawing all my original blood and replacing it with new. He withdrew a syringe full of blood from my father to give to me.

I was then taken from my mother for about a fortnight and everyday my father attended the nursing home to donate more blood, small amounts at a time to be given to me until I was well again.

I think this highligts two things - firstly that there was no such thing as a blood transfusion service in those days ( that didn't come in until after the start of the NHS in 1948 and also how incredibly lucky I am to be still here when you consider that the treatment Dr Whitley performed for me (exchange blood transfusion) in such a 'belt and braces' sort of way was only perfected in America in the spring of 1943.

In the middle of a world war, news of that treatment and its implementation by a family GP was being successfully carried out.

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